


A Preclude to His Ballad

by Deathbyhook



Category: American Gods (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/M, Post-Canon, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-24
Updated: 2019-03-05
Packaged: 2019-11-04 19:10:49
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,490
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17903876
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Deathbyhook/pseuds/Deathbyhook
Summary: He has had legends birthed from his story. Lived centuries with man's wishes and greed. Lived of loaves and milk, and by the light of the moon. Now, from dirt, comes the only Moon that eclipses it all. One common note to his ballad that went unnoticed by the folk and kin who sang his tale... Laura Moon. And all of the other faces she's worn in his life... This is the Preclude to his Ballad.





	1. Chapter 1

Years roll like thunder; though he is remissed to admit; considering his particular distaste for all-father, all pain in the arse, Odin. Some years are quick, with startling appearance. And others simply trickle out their bass and steady melody; taking time for a reprieve from the harsh staccato of the tempest humans create. ‘Tis usually a sign the storm is rolling away, or another is coming behind it. 

He watches his dead friend wander; friend a liberally applied term. Her near maroon waves babbling about her face and shoulders like the brooks from home. Where the soil was soft and waters wear clear, and when the two met, they’d create a fantastic show of deep brown waters with golds and bronzes, depending on where the sun hit. 

Her brown is fading tho. As are her blue-green eyes; into a milky cataract gray. And though her rot is progressing and her heart no longer beats, thanks to him, he still cant help but to see the faces of so many others that are long laid in their graves. 

“What are you staring at, cereal mascot?” her little viper tongue lashes at him, wrapping the silk jumper around her a little tighter. Her smooth skin sallow, yet a stark contrast to the spikiness within.

“Och, you we shite, I was looking at you dead face- making sure it won't fall off yer bones. Cant have ye lookin’ like a freshly peeled rotten grape,” Sweeney swipes back. He may get the shite kicked out of his arsehole around her, but at least they were matched in words; the venomous little cunt that she is.

“Good, can't have you getting all sentimental on me now, we have a deal,” her lips pout with a drag of tobacco, and then she scuffs the cigarette under her boot. Her eyes, though not clear, certainly arrest him and pin him into a place no man of 6’5’’ and centuries of irreverence has ever really been; a place of submission, “You are still gonna find me a God to bring me back to life. Or you’re going to help me get Odin to do it.”

The threat beneath that reminder is implied. After that by-the-balls incident in Ostara’s house; he’s sure she’ll crack open his sack like a bag o’ nuts with no remorse. Her raised eyebrow, and fucking shite of a smirk let’s him know, she knows.

“Aye, you cunt, I know,” she half laughs at his endearment; well- what passes for an endearment betwixt them. His ruffled feathers smooth a bit with the sound. His heart clenching a bit. So many others have had that same laugh, and he’s left wondering again if there’s a bit of each of them in her. 

Suddenly, the air shifts a bit around her. The coin’s ringing muted a bit. She looks off into the meadow near them, Ostara brought back Spring. And with Odin’s permission, at least healed Laura’s sutures; no more Frankenstein stitches.

She begins to walk into the field. Mindlessly trailing back and forth amongst the blades of grass and tulips, and he’s taken back to his childhood. A small woman running in the reathes, laughing giddily as he chases her, and a flower crown atop her raven hair. Now, is no place for laughter.

He’s watched Laura Moon for some time; since the time she was even smaller than she is now. Just a babe in her Gran’s arms. Watched as she grew, such a serious child, into an even more serious woman. It wasn’t constant. Lapses did happen as he ran errands for Odin, preparing for coming of the man who would bring about the change Odin was to promise the fellow Gods. Promises wrapped in lies, like his own ballad of woe. 

He pushes off the car he’s leant against. Follows her again, like he has all her ancestors.

He finds it humorous that none of her versions really recognized the undoubtedly duplicated looks in the other. Sure, different hair and humors, but the eyes and lips and cheeks. Same. All as fiercely beautiful and strong as their original. And he’s always as breathless as before. Besotted, if ye like. And they always end up in the dirt.

_ I curse you. I curse you to always look upon my face in your immortality, but never able to touch until it is time to lay me to rest in the ground. And the day my second self’s heart beats for ye, is the day you can have me. But be warned.  _ I _ will  _ never _ have ye again! _

He flinches as he hears her voice. The second curse he received that day, though the first seemed like a blessing. The reathes reach his knees as he circles her, before sitting her opposite.

“Odin did give yeh life, yer just too dumb to realize it,” His heart is pounding beneath his ribs. This was it. 

“Oh, yeah, the fucking Riddler-esque cryptic message? How’s that help?” her voice pokes up over the blades of grass from where she lay. 

 

_ I grant you life,  _ but  _ for you to fully appreciate it and for blood to run through your veins, you must melt that icy heart of yours. You need to  _ remember _. Your new friend here, will help you; I’d consider him an expert with regards to this particular breed of memories.. And once you remember, once the spark awakens you, then will your heart beat again… Oh! I’ll even let you keep your newfound abilities. Can’t have you be a viper without fangs.  _

 

Sweeney could have punched the smugness off Wednesday’s face. Especially his caveat;  _ But you will leave Shadow to my devices. _

He had watched the light dim a little more from her eyes. And all he guilt from the past few weeks felt like a lump of sod in his middle. 

“Dead wife,” he speaks up, after his drag of smoke, “best time we get to it.”

He stands, both his feet large and heavy as he treads his way through the blades to get to her. Both feet plant on either side of her, and he reaches his hands out to her, for leverage. 

She squints her eyes up at him. There’s not enough sunlight for it to be mistaken for anything other than suspicion.

“Are you in on this?” She asks. Monotonous. Expectant. He cringes inwardly at the thought that she’s expect nothing less. 

 

_ I’m not an evil man! I’m not! _

 

His own words echo in his head; a painful clanging upon the bones and fissures. He’s not an evil man. But he has certainly done evil things, simply to pay off a debt.

“In a way,” he figured honesty was the best practice here. The onslaught of information coming her way should be padded with some form of transparency. The human mind can only accept so much at a time.

“Not reassuring,” but she shrugs and hops up without using his help. He rolls his shoulders, with a slight huff. She was such a blister on his arse. She’s looking up at him, her jaw and neck so strong and small, he remembers stopping down to nuzzle that sweet place, for another woman long ago. He blinks. His jaw clenches. 

“Stand still, close yer eyes, and hold tight- and don’t hit,” he says, making sure their eyes connect in a way only understanding passes between them. Her face scrunches with morbid curiosity. But her eyes widen as he scoots closer. 

It’s curious. She even feels the same. Every slight curve and narrow limb. Her head tucks in the same place on his sternum. His body feels alive. Alive in a way that was lost to him after years of exposure and experience tends to dampen. Not erotic. But- certainly overwhelming feelings of being home. 

Her arms and hands are stuck straight out by her sides. 

“I told ye,” he pulls her closer she pokes her face up to look at him, his lips press into a thin line and he firmly tucks her head back on its side flush against his lower chest, “Hold tight.”

“If you just wanted a hug, leprec-“

She doesn’t get to finish. The wind picks up, and the earth beneath their feet feels as if it’s spinning, and her hands find desperate purchase in the folds of his jacket.

This has always been painful for him. This feeling of being ripped from time. 

They spin and the magic of the coin in her belly, and the metal in his veins begins to sheath them in onyx shadows and shimmering gold lights. They feel chaotic and tumbling like a spinning coin lit only by fire on tavern wood; thrown from a reckless man’s hands in an attempt to feel dangerously close to losing all he had. As he did now.

The pain becomes acute as a ringing heightens in his ears. A harmony of their screams from the agony peaks to an abrupt end, as they fall to the ground they now stand upon.

It takes him a moment to regain footing. He gets to his hands and knees, then lunges to grab onto a tree before him. He reaches his full height when- 

“What the fuck?!” Her fist hits his ribs, there’s a crack, and through the white hot pain, he knows there’s no break. 

“ **_Och!_ ** ” He roars, “you bleeding shite!”

“Why the shit would you do that? Ever heard of consent?!”

He catches his breath and concentrates; focusing on having the gold in his system weave around the fissure now on his right lower rib. Like in inward smithing, the gold is hot and molten; and it fills before smoothing out the surface of the damaged bone.

“Aye, and ye would have joined me had I said “dead wife, I’m gonna take you to another time and it gonna feel like the meat is being ripped off yer bones”... Coz I don’t think ye would have. Trust me, it hurts more when you know where you’re going.”

She looks like she’s about to punch him again, tell him off. But she registers what he’s said and lowers her fist to look around, absentmindedly she says, “I’m touched. Didn’t know douche-canoes could be so considerate.”

It was a half hearted insult. And he can’t help himself but feel a glimmer of hope. 

“So, another time- as in- we travelled through time?”

She circles the small opening of ground amongst the trees, they now stand in.

He stands, finally able to take a full breath. He cocks his hips and pulls out a cigarette. With a sardonic nod, “aye,  _ dead _ wife.”

He watches her, and thinks. If she’s peeved now, he knows for certain; once she’s seen the real purpose of this trip, she’ll kill him.


	2. Chapter 2

Sweeney likes the affronted look on her face when he emphasizes  _ dead _ . As if the mere idea of time travel was preposterous concept for the walking dead. 

“Okay, yeah, I am dead- but  _ time travel _ ?!”

Here was the humanity. The limitations of belief. The shortage of faith that Wednesday wants to stamp out. Sweeney understands. But humanity, once they believe in Gods again, will start to believe they too can be Gods. Another Greek tragedy waiting to happen. Little andromeda shites running around. 

“Yes, what a concept,” he stomps out the leftover cigarette, “shall we?”

She blinks, shaken, but steels herself for the coming venture. He sarcastically holds out an elbow to escort her, but she storms past. He smirks.

“So-  _ when _ are we?”

“We are in Druid country, pre-Roman occupancy. Vikings have come. With them,” he pauses for affect, as the echoes of war drums grow louder.

Painted men in white and blue paste on their skin walk past them. The bluish fog in the trees is the perfect cover for their advance. They are all lithe and seem to move with the breeze and in tandem with how the leaves move. Their markings twisting in similar fashion the trees bows form. Then…

“Holy shit! Is that?” She’s gobsmacked. Jaw hanging to the floor, and he almost shivers; her dead skin and eyes making the expression particularly freaky.

Behind the horde of druids, there he stands, matted and plaited hair falling over his shoulders. His muscles, though substantial and certainly generously endowed, a little more wiry than he is now. Lack of certain dietary needs can do that to a man. Also- being mortal.

“Eh, you look better now,” she says after gaining composure. He feels a slight warmth in his belly, and upon his cheeks. 

“All we had were potatoes ye shite,” he feigned insult. And then he shuffles his jacket realizing how absolutely stereotypical he sounded.

“Yeah, yeah- why are we here? What about this is something  _ I  _ have to remember?”

He huffs and grabs her upper arm, pulling them forward to follow the horde. The drumming quickens and a war cry shouts. Suddenly they’re witnessing a battle. Spears and axes cutting away at the other. For against foe. And then, thunder.

Laura looks up at the sky, just as he sees his old self do the same. The sky is clear and startlingly blue. 

“Wha-” she begins to ask him but lighting strikes the ground and from the charred soil rises a massive man. And her eyes nearly pop out her skull as she takes in the giant before her, “Wednesday?”

He nods as an answer. She’s enthralled. Watching Odin swing his anvil and crushing the bodies of any who charged him. Save one. Sweeney. 

He’s running, further and faster than the rest. She watched him set his gaze on Odin and determine his fate: die or kill this monster. Just before he reaches the radius of the mighty hammer in Odin's swing, he leaps; landing a sure foot on the metal and using the force to propel him up. With a spear over his head, Sweeney’s old self; Buile Suibhne- forces his fierce arms down and strikes Odin in his left eye.

“Oh shit yeah!” She whoops and hollers. Celebrating his blow. He frowns. He had felt the same.

The earth shakes and thunder rolls through the skies. Trees nearly uproot themselves. And like a deep rolling clamber, Odin’s cry of pain and loss echoes through every cell of their bodies.

Then Odin’s massive hand grabs hold of Suibhne to throw him off. Then paws at the spear in his eye, presumably stuck in a part of his skull, as he struggles to yank it free.

“Jeeee-zus!” She cringes. She reaches a hand over to slap his upper arm, he rubs it off.

“Shh, dead wife, you’re gonna miss the whole fucking point to this,” she shuts herself up with bent brows, and watches the rest unfold.

Wednesday starts to speak in Celt, and Suibhne is trembling on the ground. Eyes wide. Suddenly he’s writhing on the ground, his skin becoming goosebumps and shiny, and Sweeney looks over to Laura to see her eyes widen as she watches gold seep from his pores and coat his flesh. As the gold covers him a loud ringing sound vibrates through air. Laura covers her ears. Then- complete and utter silence.

“What the fuck just happened?” Her voice sounds distant. He remembers these next few moments. 

“Odin just cursed me with eternal life, and to know nothing but of man’s greed for as long as I live,” his own voice is low. Grieved. 

She looks up at him suddenly, but he can’t seem to meet her eye. He’s expecting some rebuke for not appreciating the gift of the “curse”, but he can feel the air between them. It’s cold and and limp, but heavy. He can feel her loneliness, as well as his own. 

“I’m sorry,” she whispers. Her eyes trail back over to Suibhne’s prone body. The gold turns into light as it is sucked inwardly, and snuffs out in his veins.

They follow him after he stands and looks around him. The God already gone. Around them are scattered bodies, shattered almost, from the effects of Odin’s cry. The thunderous noise having split them apart.

His bare feet slosh in sod and blood. Stumbling towards some destination. 

It seems to go on forever, but finally he reaches and small enclave where women and children are chanting and grieving. Somehow pre-aware of their lost ones. 

“Odin visited them, told them of who their new god was and what he had done. Asked them to forsake Bran.” 

His old self stumbles in, falls to ground, and the clan’s chants become more fierce and piercing. Their hands rest on his shoulders and pulse with their cathartic rhythm. 

“You’re being made their king,” she says. Her eyes blink, her lips tremble with an unspoken question. Her brows crinkle even more.

“Come,” he holds out a hand.

“Not again,” she gripes. 

“Alright, I let ya walk alone for a few hundred years alone and I'll meet ye then.”

He punctuates his meaning with a terse reach again. Her hand sassily slaps down on his own, making his bones whine.

But he chuckles all the same. The wind builds up again, and then they’re standing in a dark and damp hallway, a voice; a woman- is yelling down the hall.

She inches forward, but his feet feel like lead. The soles of his boots seem to stick on every pore of the old stone floor.

He watches her feet, as she skirts the hallway; treading softly. Not knowing that no one in this time can hear or see them.

He hears her gasp before he sees her face. She stumbles back. There in the room, is him towering over a small woman, crying his eyes out like a right puss, and there is her other self; Earonn.

“What the fuck?!” She rounds on him. He was expecting this. She slams him into the wall. 

“What the fuck is this, ginger minge?”

He grunts, trying to adjust the angle of his body so that her freakishly small and freakishly strong hand wasn’t so close to his neck; her hand holding him to the wall with his shirt fisted between her fingers.

“That’s you. The original you,” his face contorts into more pain as she digs the heel of her palm further into his collar bone. 

“Bullshit,” she hisses, “What is this?”

“This is the shit you have to remember, you brat!” He is starting to yell, frustrated- no, angry. Years, no- millennia of anger, “you’re first self cursed me! Okay?!”

He’s red hot and vibrating with fury. She shivers and he feels her hand tremble. He uses the moment to shove her off. He grabs her upper arm and drags her to the doorway. Speaking over the foreign language they hear. He feels Laura shaking between his fingers and palm.

“We were to be wed. Her father disproved and she ran off with me anyway. I was supposed to go to war for her. To defend our love. Odin showed me my death before the first battle. So I fled. I became another one of his crows…. His little pigeon  _ bitch _ . I came back to her. To explain that I ran to  _ live _ for our love. I lost time, and it was too late. My kingdom was slaughtered and she was sold to the next available king; a loveless marriage. And she-  _ you _ \- took that fucking golden coin that lays in your dead belly and swore that I will forever be near but never have what I want most in the world, and will forever have the luck to make sure I live long enough to bed to be dead.”

Sweeney’s voice trembles. And he swallows the fear and heartbreak. Years of practice, but the sting is no less. Like swallowing razor blades, this longing and loneliness.

“How long?” Her voice is sandpaper to his ears. A beautiful melody that’s been on repeat for too long. 

“Do the math,” he chides.

“Okay, so like over three hundred years- geez,” she jerks her arms free of his grip. She pivots, “show me.”

He bristles. Of course she’d want more. More proof. More context. But for some reason he wants to keep this part of himself hidden and buried like the gold in his veins. 

“I’m supposed to remember, right? To spark back this ol’ ticker? So let’s get to it,” she huffs.

Of course. All business. All about her. And just when his heart is aflutter, this wee shitet opens her fat gob.

“Fine.” She smirks, knowing she’d get her way. His heart is pounding and sore. He’s all too ready to give over his own soul, just to give this woman her spark back and be rid of her. And he’ll ignore every glimmer throughout this venture, that gives him hope. He still can’t fight the feeling that the end of this journey feels magnanimous in some way. If anything, she’ll certainly be the death of him.

 


End file.
